And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.(Revelation 13:1-3)

One of the under reported modern geo-political miracles of the previous century, was the transformation of Turkey from the gigantic Ottoman Empire, the “Sick man of Europe”, which ruled all of the Middle East, the Holy land and was a constant menace to Europe, into modern , secular and efficient Turkey.

How did this transformation come about?

Exactly one hundred years ago, in the midst of the War, Ottoman Turkey’s leaders undertook a genocide eradicating many Christian Assyrians, Greeks and an entire population of Armenians from Turkish soil. This cruelly executed Genocide is denied to this day by the Turkish Government, but is a well known fact of history.

By the time the guns of World War 1 had been silenced and the armistice had been enacted, the nation of Turkey had been stripped of her vast Empire, the 400 years long Ottoman rule was broken and Turkey was reduced to the borders we now recognize, a shell of what she once controlled.

Turkey had sided with Germany in the conflict and would now be forced to pay the price of being on the losing side.In November 1918 Italian British and French troops occupied Istanbul, and would remain there until 1923. This was the first time Istanbul had been occupied by Westerners since the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

The Sykes Picot agreement between the victorious allies had already redrawn the maps of the Middle East, creating new countries such as TransJordan(modern Jordan), Palestine(Israel) Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and other new nations which had once been under the oppressive rule of the Ottoman empire. France and Britain would be granted “mandates” over these new states.

This is how the modern Middle Eastern order was established and would remain basically until very recently.

The Ottoman government collapsed and there was a brief Turkish War of Independence between a newly formed Turkish National Movement, and Armenian and Greek proxy forces of the victorious allies. Eventually a reasonable agreement was settled upon and the new Turkish Nationalist movement came to power, under the leadership of “young Turks” led by Mustafa Kemal who came to be known as Ataturk-“Father of the Turks”.

Kemal concluded that Turkey needed to be modernized, and brought into the twentieth century. Thus he undertook a series of radical reforms which would transform Turkey into a modern European style state. Turkey would have a constitution, it would become a Republic, sovereignty would be invested in the State and not in any single ruler. The death penalty would be abolished and the constitution reformed.

Attaturk even changed the day of rest to Sunday, and also changed the Turkish calendar,

Perhaps the most astonishing reform was Kemal’s banishment of Islam from any role in shaping public policy, a kind of “Separation of Mosque and state”. Sheriot(Shariah) was revoked, religious schools were closed, public education was secularized, and perhaps most shockingly to Sunnis across the former Empire, the Caliphate was abolished and the Government was moved to Ankara.

It was shortly after the banishment of the Caliphate occurred, a profound calamity to the Sunni world, an Egyptian group formed called the Muslim Brotherhood, which made the restoration of the Caliphate it’s priority. A tall order considering the weakness and disarray of the Muslim world and the seeming invincible strength of the Christian West.

Other reforms included clothing changes, women were no longer required to wear a veil, men were encouraged to dress in modern western clothing. The Fez was outlawed, and the veil was strongly discouraged, so great was the break from the past which the movement attempted.

Ataturk under-took national language reform replacing the former Persian,Turkish/Arabic language with a purer form of Turkic speech. Even the national script was changed under his direction. Turkey adopted Latin script, which actually drastically improved national literacy.

The Turkish military became a secularized national army in the western sense, and to it was vouchsafed by constitution the preservation of Turkey’s secular status.

Turkey emerged as a modern secular European State, a member of Nato, an Ally of the West throughout the cold war, a close friend of Israel, and has been considered for inclusion into the European Union. Turkey has the world’s sixth largest military and the largest military in Europe.

She has maintained her secular status for almost a hundred years, the military stepping in when necessary to preserve Turkey’s republic from Islamists ,in 1960,1971, 1980, and 1997.

Thus, for about a hundred years, the world has been living in an anomaly; a huge menace to Western peace and stability has been tranquilized. The menace had long threatened Europe and all of Christendom and which had a long string of uncontested victories has lately been put to rest, and forgotten.

But the Beast , as we will see, is awakening and Turkey has a prime role to play in the last days.

But recent events in Turkey portend a radical shift away from the successful secular hiatus Turkey and the world have enjoyed, and back into the heavily Islamic and Imperialistic past which Turkey has only recently emerged from.

Muslims do not believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, but they love symbolic actions.This is why they love to deal out death and destruction on Holy week, such as at the recent Palm Sunday Bombings.

On Easter Sunday, 2017 Turkey held a referendum which granted to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan unlimited powers and the title “Sultan” , leaving many to speculate in the Turkish press that this is the resurrection of the Caliphate, and that perhaps Erdogan is the long anticipated “Prince of the Faithful” to whom all Sunnis must pledge allegiance.

Could this be the Turkish version of a resurrection of some sort? Erdogan has learned to despise the very European powers Turks had long emulated and esteemed. He now uses the hordes of refugees from Africa and the Middle East who swell the refugee camps in Turkey created by the Syrian and Lybian fiasco, as blackmail, extorting billions of Euros from the European powers lest he open the flood upon the continent.

Erdogan recently publicly fumed in hatred and contempt of Europe, referring to the former designation, “Sick man of Europe”as once applied to Turkey,

Erdogan’s latest feud with Europe came after many EU countries barred Turkish politicians from holding prereferendum rallies in European cities.

Many EU countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria, have large Turkish expat populations that were eligible to vote in the referendum up to a April 9 deadline.

In his Izmir speech, Erdogan said Turks living in Europe were being “oppressed” and “humiliated.”

“Europe will pay for what they have done. God willing, the question of the European Union will again be on the table after April 16,” Erdogan said.

“They said a century ago that we were the ‘sick man.’ Now they are the ‘sick man.’ Europe is collapsing,” he added.

It would be worth our while to keep our eyes on Turkey, a key prophetic entity in God’s end times scheme.

An Arab report on the results of the recent referendum granting Erdogan dictatorial powers, reads like an ominous apocalyptic warning,

Even the top Arab media including Turkey experts recognize what is happening. In a headline titled “Finally Erdogan succeeded in transforming Turkey into the New Ottoman Caliphate” Al-Dehi writes:

“Will NATO now be silent on Turkey? The Referendum now transforms Erdogan into a semi-god. This achievement is the formation of the Ottoman caliphate. Turkey now will will enter a dark tunnel. There is a great division within Turkish society and Erdogan’s success will make him avenge the Kurds and the nationalists. It is the end of Ataturkism and the beginning of the Erdoganian Caliphate “.

One Response to Rapid, Ominous Changes in Turkey…Turkey in prophecy 1

Thanks Bill.
No doubt Erdogan has a big dream that he tries to fulfil but we should be aware of not confusing politico-geographic actuality with spirituality in Biblical prophecies. There is indeed a building up and a regathering for the aspired caliphate. However once the Muslim block will have come to a point of feeling strong enough again, therefore encouraged with the support of Russia – Iran being a gig player – the first aim will be to destroy Israel and they will have a go. But as the scriptures indicate Eze 38-39 though much damage possibly will occur with nuclear war, Islam will fail and be destroyed. Then the world will be politically and religiously reshaped. To my understanding neither Erdogan nor Turkey are the seats of the antichrist “1Jn 2:18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time”… A look at Rev 13 should be sufficient to see that too many verses cannot apply to Turkey such as vs 7,10, 12,13-18. Much has to happen yet before Jesus’ return, but times are moving fast indeed. Maranatha Jesus!